Vestnik Otdelenia nauk o Zemle RAN VOL. 2, NZ10007, doi:10.2205/2010NZ000063, 2010

Obsidian in prehistoric cultures of the Russian Far East: Geochemical typification, primary sources, and peculiarities of distribution

¹Far East Geological Institute of RAS, Vladivostok, Russia

²Institute of geology and mineralog Siberian Branch of RAS, Novosibirsk, Russia

³Research Reactor Center of the University of Missoury at Columbia, USA

Abstract

The overview of results of obsidian studies in the Russian Far East, based on geological, geochemical, and archaeological data, is given. Obsidian serves as commodity to establish human use of stones as raw material and the patterns of prehistoric contacts and migrations. Our research is the example of multidisciplinary studies, which are still very rare in the Russian Far East and in Russia in general. Since 1992, we were able to generate about 1250 geochemical analyses of obsidian from Primorye (Maritime) Province, Sakhalin Island, Kamchatka Peninsula, Chukotka, and Amur River basin, and the neighboring Korean Peninsula and Hokkaido Island. This is the solid background to understand the main features of human use of obsidian and its exchange/transportation in prehistoric Northeast Asia. In Primorye, obsidian from three major sources, namely Basaltic Plateau, Paektusan Volcano, and Gladkaya River, was used in the Paleolithic-Neolithic times (ca. 12,000–3000 years ago). On Kamchatka, there are at least 16 geochemical obsidian groups which reflect primary sources but not all of them are precisely pinpointed. On Chukotka, obsidian source of Lake Krasnoe is most probably the primary locale of high quality volcanic glass used by ancient people. The range of obsidian transportation and/or exchange in the Russian Far East is up to 750 km in a straight line, and this is the evidence of long-distance movement of raw materials in prehistory. Perspectives of this kind of geoarchaeological research are evident.

Received 30 September 2010; published 29 October 2010.